Get the Word out About the Sony BMG Settlement

EFF's campaign to help music fans claim their share of the
Sony BMG settlement is off to a great start. News reports
and EFF's settlement banners have spread around the web,
driving over 20,000 hits to our settlement site in one week.

Help us keep the momentum going. Sony BMG won't be held
accountable for infecting its customers' computers with
dangerous DRM if music fans don't learn about the flawed
software, the settlement, and how to submit claims. EFF has
created a webpage to guide people through the Sony BMG
settlement site, and we've designed several banners that
link to this webpage. By posting a banner on your website or
blog, you can help music fans protect themselves and get
what they deserve.

Proposed New Jersey Laws Would Chill Free Speech

EFF and Other Groups Call for Bills' Withdrawal

San Francisco - A diverse coalition of companies, public
interest organizations, and legal scholars, including the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), craigslist, Public
Citizen, the US Internet Industry Association (USIIA), the
Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and Professors
Lyrissa C. Barnett Lidsky and Jennifer M. Urban, sent an
open letter this week to three New Jersey assemblymen,
urging them to withdraw their support from two bills
designed to eliminate anonymous online speech.

Assembly bills A1327 and A2623 would require Internet
service providers to record users' identities and reveal
them in response to any claim of defamation. While aimed at
curbing online bad actors, the bills run afoul of the First
Amendment -- which protects the right to speak anonymously -
- as well as a federal law designed to protect speech in
online fora. The bills would require identification of an
online poster before the facts were resolved, leading to a
flood of unsubstantiated claims designed simply to unmask
online speakers.

"Protecting anonymity is vital to maintaining the diversity
of viewpoints on the Internet," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt
Opsahl. "Keeping online debates robust enables democracy,
even if it allows name-calling and strongly worded opinions
about political figures."

The open letter calls for Assemblymen Peter J. Biodi,
Wilfredo Caraballo, and Upendra J. Chivukula not to waste
taxpayer resources in defending these bills that will
inevitably be struck down in court. New Jersey courts are
already handling claims of defamation online in a careful
and constitutionally appropriate manner, balancing a
speaker's anonymity rights with the merits of the
plaintiff's claim. The well-established standard in New
Jersey and elsewhere for deciding whether to order the
identification of anonymous defendants has functioned well
to separate ill-founded lawsuits from cases in which
identification is appropriate.

As evidence of this balanced approach, the open letter
points to the cases available for review on a web site
maintained by the Cyberslapp Coalition -- several of whose
members signed the open letter -- at www.cyberslapp.org. The
Cyberslapp web site provides briefs, evidence, and opinions
from nearly four dozen "John Doe" cases in which the
standard has been discussed and applied. The site, which
permits search both by keyword and by state of decision, is
provided free of charge as a resource for litigants on both
sides of Doe disputes.

Job Opportunity: Develop Tor and Help Protect Online
Privacy

The developers of Tor, a software tool for communicating
anonymously online, have funding for one or two C
programmers. Due to the nature of the grant, applicants must
be students at a university in Ontario, Canada. The position
will last for the duration of 2006. To apply, follow the
link below. If you know someone who might be interested,
please forward this announcement along.

Thank You, Call For Help!

Last week, G4's Call for Help auctioned off eight editions
of Adventures of Superman issue #648 signed by several
popular tech podcasters whose logos were featured in the
comic. The $2880 raised was donated to EFF -- every penny of
which will go to defending free speech, consumer rights,
innovation, and privacy online. Thank you to Call for Help
and the winning bidders for their generous contributions!

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please contact the authors for their express permission.
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